Broadcom Inc, a major Apple Inc supplier, on Thursday suggested that the latest iPhones might be launched later than usual this year.
Broadcom chief executive officer Hock Tan (陳福陽) discussed a “major product cycle delay” at a “large North American mobile phone” customer during an earnings conference call with analysts.
Tan often refers to Apple this way.
Photos: AFP
This time, the executive said that the delay would mean the bump in wireless revenue experienced by Broadcom will happen one quarter later than usual this year.
“We are in,” Tan said, referring Broadcom components in the iPhone. “The question is timing.”
“This year, we do not expect to see this uptick in revenue until our fourth fiscal quarter,” he said. “So accordingly, we expect, our wireless revenue in Q3 will be down sequentially.”
Apple is planning to release its next iPhone line multiple weeks later than usual, Bloomberg News previously reported.
The company typically unveils its new iPhones in the second half of September, but has occasionally, like in the case of the iPhone X in 2017, launched major new models later in the year.
Phone makers usually order components months ahead of product launches. Apple typically releases new versions of the iPhone in September. If it followed that time line, Broadcom would receive orders in the current quarter, which runs through next month.
The chipmaker said that is not happening this year.
“Because of product cycle delays, the trough for our fiscal year will be Q3 — this coming quarter,” Tan said.
“Nothing has changed in terms of designs, nothing has changed in terms of the content,” including more 5G components, he said.
The delay to the new iPhone release is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has slowed Apple engineer travel to China to finalize the devices and required employees to mostly work from home in the early months of the year.
Tan also warned about “supply constraints and an expected substantial reset in wireless.”
With much of the world’s population confined to their homes, handset demand has dropped.
Broadcom gave a lackluster forecast, as weak demand for smartphone parts overshadowed rising orders from data center owners. Revenue in the three months to end next month would be US$5.75 billion, plus or minus US$150 million, it said.
That compares with an average analyst prediction of US$5.77 billion, according to data compiled earlier on Thursday by Bloomberg.
The San Jose, California-based company makes chips that filter radio signals and provide WiFi connections in iPhones and other smartphones.
Broadcom is also a key supplier of switch chips, the complex semiconductors that manage data traffic in networking equipment, an area where demand is surging.
“Looking ahead, our third-quarter guidance for semiconductors reflects a surge in demand from cloud, telecom and enterprise customers, offset by supply chain constraints and an expected substantial reset in wireless,” Tan said in a statement.
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